Mach was!? (Do something!?) is the title of an old Swabian jazzrock record that pretty much expresses what this blog is about. Its entries talk about the relation between being and becoming, self-actualization and social change. This is how I perceived and questioned reality at each given point in time, not a statement of absolute truth, a call for getting excited, or a reason for feeling criticized personally.
But if you must, you must, of course.

2016-12-31

With all the debates about “fake
news” going on, I think it is important to realize the attempt to
blinding out information which one kind of people don't like to see,
though it really matters to the lives of other people and the
more-than-human world. Freedom of speech and choice must remain as
first steps to a deeper kind of Freedom.

Yes, the obituary for the Great Barrier Reef,
as an example, was a straight hoax, yet it served as a means to shake
people out of their dream state; the reef's advancement in bleaching
is being covered more closely by the press now. Though not as closely
as it deserves, which is also true for the hundreds of animal mass deaths each year which rarely
make it to the front page and never produce the kind of questions
they should invoke:

What the hell is going on here? Would
we still think that money, economic growth, and jobs are more
important than lives if those dolphins washed ashore were ourselves
and our beloved ones?

Many serious events never make it to the front, if
they make it at all. Instead, what we are confronted with are truly
fake news: world championships in sports, allegations of espionage,
yet another bird flu, threats of one president against another, stock
market developments, or the isolated acts of terrorists(?)
overshadowing mass death and mass destruction resulting from the war
on terror, from alcohol abuse, from motorized traffic, from air
pollution etc pp.

All of which are fake news by
themselves because nothing about any of the above-mentioned subjects,
fake or true, is new(s) at all, but rather long-standing
predicaments. Nor do we ever see the full story. What's really real
is hard to tell. So neither politicians nor economists nor religious
leaders have an answer to the pressing – no, killing – issues of
our time. We are just hanging on hanging on, patching patch on patch,
because nobody dares to look at the most obvious of facts: That this
whole civilization is a fake paradise based upon the most ridiculous
of post-truths – separation.

"Don’t worry about fake news. The whole scare is, itself, fake news. Don’t believe a word of it.Could it be that the news media is still trying to distract us from
their own poor performance? After all, if inaccuracy makes a thing
“fake,” then all the pundits’ and pollsters’ pre-election day
predictions were pretty bad offenders." --Jordan Shapiro in: Forbes, 26.12.2016

If life seems often so surreal, it is
because, as a society, we have turned our backs on reality like
10,000 years ago. Comparison with any of the other, indigenous
cultures we have gathered information about (and for most part driven
into extinction) leaves no doubt in me.

You may agree with me so far or not,
yet the discussion around “fake news” is a distraction from that which is not televised and that you are not supposed to see. Run a Gogle search on Facebook & Fake news & funding to see the hand of the 1%, and don't miss out on the billion-Dollar trace leading to climate change denial.

Exclusive broadcasting of certified information, more commonly called censorship, is based on the the post-factual assumption that
Uncle Sam knows better what is true and good for you. To keep people
from making their own choices, even if those choices are “wrong”,
means that most people may never learn to distinguish truth from
illusion, and that those who do are being showered in government and
corporate propaganda with very little sanity to hold on to, apart
from their own internal Selves.

Though... who knows... this might help
with focussing on a Truth that is deeper than words.

2016-12-28

Extreme events bring our true values to display. Sometimes, when we talk about it to our friends and family, we are in for a surprise. And often times, that is not convenient. How often do I see decision-making being reduced to the question of financial feasability; money and jobs "trump" literally every other value I might want to put forward, which only goes to show how fear and greed are governing the minds of almost all the inmates of industrial civilization. Humanity and human rights are clearly not our foremost concern, as opposed to what many constitutions and soap-box oratories pretend to hold. By observing reactions to an urgent piece of communication we are getting an insight into people's true values, some sincerity seeping through involuntarily.

In a way that is much better than the eerie silence most people react with when it comes to inconvenient news and that subsequently covers such news in a thick layer of unexpressed negativity. What is this silence about? Is it shock? Is it irritation? Dismissiveness? Moral illiteracy? Satiation? Numbness?Which truth does silence in the face of horror express ... with you?

I think that, as things are getting more dire by the day, as natural and social systems are falling apart, and as the breaking point is nearing, the World as represented by activists and activist writers deserves being joined by a larger audience -- the choir of voices not yet heard, the silent listeners and mute readers and quiet observers. Speak up in favour of those writing and acting on behalf of life, by giving comments and likes, by reacting and sharing, and by contributing your own voice and hand to what is unfolding around you. But first and foremost, act as you feel you should have been all along.

In the face of hate, greed and fear, spread the the message of love, of care, and of reasonand be the first to heed it.

2016-12-21

I have been a 'die-hard metal fan', as
they call the kind of folks that bang their heads at the thrashing
beat of drums and screeching sounds of guitars, a guy who, like all
the other die-hard metal fans, used to say, “I don't give a shit
what people think. I really couldn't care less.”

Well, I was lying.

Of course I cared! That's the whole
point of being a die-hard metal fan. You yearn to be other than the
others, you want to show off your freedom to all those sheeple out
there who don't dare to bleat. You want to be seen.

So I was lying; I did care, and I was
wrong about my perceived liberty, too, as I know now. Being different, as well, is not the desirable thing I thought it was. There are no sheeple. Or rather, all of us are sheeple, the lifestock of the 1%, and each living being deserves getting cared about in kinder ways than rejection as an 'other'.

Caring is the point of being an
activist. Because, if you didn't give a damn you wouldn't be out
there risking your reputation, your job, or, for some of you, even
your life. Yes, you want to make a difference, physically. And then
you want for that difference to take roots in the collective
consciousness, you want for it to persist and have a lasting impact;
you wish for people to finally wake up to what you can see so
clearly.

Yet, to get to the point where you can
see so clearly what most others don't, you must have significantly
reduced caring about mainstream opinions, and that means, you let go
of wanting to be an acknowledged, highly valued member of society.
Because the very moment you start to deviate from their kind of truth
you are on your way out.

From this perspective, a quote from one
of Richard Bach's novels makes a lot of sense:

"Well,
what's wrong with losing ninety percent of my audience? What's wrong
with losing ALL my audience? I know what I know and I talk what I
talk! And if that's wrong then that's just too bad." --Richard
Bach

In
the end, as
an author, you
are writing for the sake of truth as such. You are writing
in support of those who already understand the truth you tell, the
ones who need support with staying strong and sane in an ocean of
falsehood.
You are writing for the ones you care about. You
are writing for whom and what you love.
Hell,
does it make a difference! It makes an infinitely greater difference
than voting for the right guy or buying from a green shop.

So let's care. Let's care a lot! Let's
care about our friends and neighbours, about the toads, the grass,
the cockroaches, the sky, and the creek. Let's care about truth.

Truth is not depending on a democratic
majority, or anybody else but its speaker at all. Let truth be told, no
matter what. You don't know what else to say. A certain way along the
path, you cannot stand anything but the truth; no matter how small
the deviation, you cringe under the slightest of falsehoods, and you
would rather be dead than contributing to the big lie that is our
culture. This is how much you care.

2016-12-17

[A note taken during a four-hour wait in transit]
Every time I traverse a city I wonder why anyone would live amidst all this clutter, garbage, noise, stench, crowdedness, and hectic activity. To call it an eyesore was an understatement. To me, it seems like ugliness manifest, an attack against all of my senses. Well, you can hardly avoid those endless sprawls of buildings, adverts, vehicles and their unpleasant byproducts when you travel afar. Large airports don't grow in the middle of untouched wilderness...

Ok, I'm a misfit.
You know you are a misfit when, after three hours of flight, you are greeting the hardy grasses and shrubs at Muscat airport as your fellow beings while your plane passes them by on taxiing to a terminal. I wanted to pull the emergency break - where is it??? - smash a window and jump out of the cabin right there to go touch some of those islands of life inhabiting this desert of silicates and asphalt.
Everything about air travels is, of course, artificial, and it painfully feels like this to me. Worst of it all are the terminals with their a/c air, their weird lighting and their shiny surfaces, all glass, steel, aluminum and plastic; I always imagine being an insect on a life-repellent surface, not welcome, every move eyed suspiciously. I should have counted the checkpoints; probably a two-digit figure already, and I still have to absolve the second leg of my journey.

Yes, I went by my own choice. I chose to apply all those tech resources that I so fiercely reject. Such are the lives of hypocrites - and each and everyone of those who have been born into this bloody hell so proudly calling itself a civilization and who hate the guts of it. In having been born to this time and age of all-encompassing madness we, the misfits, had no choice; we only have the freedom to reduce mother culture's grip on us a weeny bit, and to tear its phoney, fraudulent myths to shreds with every word we speak:

the goverment fraud, the military fraud, the science fraud, the technology fraud, the God fraud, the money fraud, the human-superiority fraud, the separation fraud, the control fraud.

Just watch the December 2016 CNN presentation on the sixth mass extinction to see a few things that are wrong with our culture - at least this much has been acknowledged by mainstream culture, as it is impossible to hide it any longer from public awareness - only to take the heat out of it by pretending our predicament was still manageable without having to change our lifestyle:

"experts say we have the solutions we need."

Hilariously stumbling closer to truth, the author added,

"What we don't have is time."

That's right. Time has been running out decades ago. Which is not to say we shouldn't do all the things the CNN presentation proposes; only that the situation is far beyond technological fixes. Action has to be part of our living for what we love, a pursuit of excellence without attachment to a specific outcome. Letting go of control over a situation opens the gateway for "miracles", which are, rationally spoken, unexpected solutions, unaffected of improvement for the worse. Short of a miracle, as I see things, we are in for the eradication of life on Earth by the hands of civilization. Not fighting it will make a difference, but whether we care.

2016-12-10

I am currently translating a book on
climate change, its consequences, and how do deal with it. One of the
sources mentioned in there is a Report of The Environmental
Pollution Panel by the President's Science Advisor Committee,
issued in November 1965 to advise US President Lyndon B.
Johnson on the effects of pollution on the nation's health and
economy. The report's title is, “Restoring
the Quality of Our Environment”,
which implies that said environment had already decreased to a
significant amount in quality, and that this was acknowledged. In
fact, the table of contents reads like from an eco warrior's bible.

I
would like to quote a few passages from it, to illuminate the extent
to which the US government knew fifty (!) years ago where the train
of industrial civilization is headed.

On “possible effects of increased
atmospheric carbon dioxide on climate”

“We may compute from his data [F.
Möller, On the influences of changes in the CO2 concentration
in air on the radiation balance of earth's surface and on the
climate; in Journal of Geophysical Research, 1963] that with a 25%
increase in the atmospheric CO2, the average temperature
near the Earth's surface could increase between 0.6C and 4C” (p121)

and they go on to describe how
water vapor plays a role in increasing the effect of
atmospheric CO2, through a self-reinforcing feedback loop.

They also mention C. G. Callendar's
groundbreaking work in the late 30s and the 40s regarding temperature
increase through carbon increase. (p122)

“Atmospheric warming due to an
increase in the CO2 content of the atmosphere may result
in a catastrophically rapid melting of the Antarctic ice cap,
with an accompanying rise in sea level. [The authors think,
though, that] such melting must occur relatively slowly on a human
scale.” (p123)

Well, we know about
self-reinforcing feedback loops and we can witness first-hand how
both Arctic and Antarctic ice caps are melting like snow in the sun,
with record losses on both poles at the same time in October
and November 2016, which is a first in human history. Imagine it's
winter on the North pole, it's pitch dark and it's supposed to be
below -20C, but sea ice is melting.

“Pronounced effect on the
distribution of some fisheries”
through warming of the oceans' surface water counts among further
ramifications of increased CO2
levels. The authors note that“the amelioration of oceanic climate also resulted in a marked retreat of seaicearound the edges of the Arctic Ocean.”

The
authors furthermore note that the burning of limestone for cement
and other construction purposes contributes a significant amount of
CO2
to the atmosphere, that the growth
of agricultural area
has reduced forests and grass lands and has triggered the oxidisation
of ocean-based and soil-based carbon
into CO2,
which means they identified another self-reinforcing feedback loop
(p123f)

The authors then conclude:

“Through his worldwide industrial
civilization, Man is unwittingly conducting a vast geophysical
experiment. Within a few generations he is burning fossil fuels that
slowly accumulated in the earth over the past 500 million years. The
CO2 produced by this combustion is injected into the
atmosphere; about half of it remains there. The estimated recoverable
reserves of fossil fuels are sufficient to produce nearly a 200%
increase in the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere.

By the year 2000 the increase in
atmospheric CO2 will be close to 25%
[accurate!]. This may be sufficient to produce measurable and perhaps
marked changes in climate, and will almost certainly cause
significant changes in the temperature and other properties of
the stratosphere” (p126)

It's 1965 and they are accurate
again!

“The climatic changes that may be
produced by the increased CO2 content could be deleterious
from the point of view of human beings.” (p127)

Ha! And not to mention from the
point of view of failing ecosystems. The authors then go on to
describe fantasy technology needed to remove the CO2 from
the atmosphere. This must be one of the first mentionings of geo-engineering.

“We can conclude that, at least
during the recent past, fossil fuel combustion has been the only
significant source of CO2 added to the
ocean-atmosphere-biosphere system.” (p131)

So much for solar activity, cosmic
rays, or natural climate cycles being responsible for Earth's
predicament.

Subsequent reports,
like the research done by Exxon
(“temperatures are
likely to rise by a catastrophic 5 degrees Celsius, with rises of 6,
7 or even more quite possible”), the
briefing of the Alliance
of Small Island States to the Copenhagen Climate Summit (“350ppm
is a death sentence”), and a scenario
created for the Pentagon, all underline the reality of the climatic
threat and the necessity for action. The Pentagon report (An
Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for US National
Security, by Peter Schwartz and
Doug Randall, October 2003) is “imagining
the unthinkable”. It states:

"There is substantial evidence to
indicate that significant global warming will occur
during the 21st
century. […] gradual global warming could lead to a relatively
abrupt slowing
of the ocean’s thermohaline conveyor, which could
lead to harsher winter weather
conditions, sharply reduced soil
moisture, and more intense winds in certain regions
that currently
provide a significant fraction of the world’s food production.
With
inadequate preparation, the result could be a significant drop
in the human carrying
capacity of the Earth’s environment"

“These [changes] could occur in
several food
producing regions around the world at the same time
within the next 15-30 years,
challenging the notion that society’s
ability to adapt will make climate change
manageable.”

I think we have read enough to
understand that the governments of the world are well informed on
what is really going on with the climate, but they don't tell.

I also think we all have seen enough in
our own environment or on the news to come to the conclusion that
climate change is neither a hoax nor a pony farm experience we could wiggle our way out of easily.

Throughout all those years since 1965,
something could have been done to stop, curb, or mitigate the
development. Our boat didn't have to hit the iceberg, yet it did so
at full speed, and catastrophic damage is irreversibly done – only this time, the berg is sinking... first.

I therefore think that in today's
situation don't ask, don't tell
is a non-appropriate policy – more than ever, for it never was. We
should not only ask ourselves, but our governments, economic leaders
and media enterprises why none of this makes the headlines of every
single news show, similar to the financial crisis of 2008 when all frequencies
bothered us with banks' death screams for months on end. Why have they driven us into this – in broad daylight, in full sight, and the headlights on?

When you hear your government –
be it the German, the Indian, the Chinese, the Russian, or the
You-name-it government – when you hear your government claim that
they are doing something about climate change, be aware that, in
fifty years, they have done exactly nothing to curb the effects of
industrial activities and the corresponding lifestyle; they have
hidden the facts, as described above, from you and deliberately
downplayed the ramifications of industrial pollution while economic
growth has been maintained as the primary objective in
decision-making. How likely is it that anything has changed in the
meantime, given that major experts warn of near-term human extinction
due to temperature increases way beyond 4C while your favorite
politician, whoever it is, holds we could stop at the 2C we have
already (!) reached? Think about it.

Dance of death to the music of the
abrupt heating of the Earth has started. We are in the midst
of the sixth
mass extinction, and anyone who thinks you can drive 200 species
a day into the abyss and have a planet that is empty except for eight
billion humans is dreaming. At one point, it's going to be us – not
because we run out of ideas, but because our ability to grow food
will have been destroyed utterly.

Maybe it's time for you to take some
time and think about how you would live if your time was short. What
is truly, deepy important to you? What would you like to pursue?

2016-12-07

Art thrives on misery and suffering.
Tough times produce great writers, painters, musicians
etc. Art is a means of self-fulfillment.

But: true Creativity comes from the connection with our joyful center,
when you act from what you intuitively know to be right and true and
good. Art is a means of service.

I found both to be accurate. I had my most creative
writing bouts when I was totally miserable, and once again after I
had woken up to the fact that the misery, including the reasons for
it, were an illusion and fully committed myself to reconnecting to
the Sacred. During the intermittent period I shut down
writing activities almost completely for several years. I knew nothing then,
I was totally disoriented, and I saw no meaning in anything.

Writing does have to make sense, not
only to the reader, but to the writer as well. If this is missing
from your life, forget about being creative. Don't even try.